Scottish Executive

Central Heating

John Scott (Ayr) (Con): To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S1W-20910 by Iain Gray on 8 January 2002, how many central heating installations have been completed to date under the Central Heating Programme in total.

Iain Gray: As at 16 January, Eaga had installed 405 central heating systems in the private sector. They are on target to install over 3,500 systems by 31 March 2002. Information is currently being collected from the social rented sector landlords, but indications show that they will have installed around 6,400 central heating systems by 31 March 2002.

Central Heating

John Scott (Ayr) (Con): To ask the Scottish Executive what the average timescale is from application to installation of central heating under the Central Heating Programme.

Iain Gray: I refer the member to the answer given to question S1W-20749 on 10 January 2002.

Debt

Fiona Hyslop (Lothians) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive what analysis it has done of the efficacy of its pilot debtline in Fife.

Iain Gray: The debtline pilot in Fife is part of a joint pilot led by the Department of Trade and Industry. At present the advice work has not started and therefore no analysis has been done. However, we hope the pilot will be fully operational in the next few months.

Dental Care

John Scott (Ayr) (Con): To ask the Scottish Executive whether it has any plans to appoint a dental services ombudsman.

Malcolm Chisholm: The Health Service Ombudsman is responsible for reviewing complaints wherever they occur in NHSScotland. The Scottish Public Sector Ombudsman Bill proposes the establishment of a "one stop shop", combining the offices of the Scottish Parliamentary, Health Service, Local Government and Housing Association Ombudsman.

Employment

Linda Fabiani (Central Scotland) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answers to questions S1W-19311, S1W-19312, S1W-19313, S1W-19314, S1W-19315, S1W-19316, S1W-19317, S1W-19318, S1W-19319 and S1W-19320 by Ms Wendy Alexander on 6 November 2001, whether it intends to collect and hold centrally such information on job losses.

Ms Wendy Alexander: The Scottish labour market is dynamic. The monthly labour market statistics from the Office of National Statistics give employment changes from quarter to quarter. There are large shifts between employment, unemployment and inactivity each month/quarter. Any attempt to measure job loss figures is likely to be swamped by these large flows.

  The Labour Force Survey (run by the Office of National Statistics) provides data on a quarterly basis for redundancies. The information collected on redundancies relates to whether an individual was made redundant in the three months prior to the survey interview. The data, however, is not sufficiently large to disaggregate reliably below an all-Scotland level.

  Jobs are constantly being created and lost across the country as firms start-up, expand, contract, close or merge. It would be a substantial burden on business – and indeed all employers – to require notifications of all job changes.

Finance

Mr Murray Tosh (South of Scotland) (Con): To ask the Scottish Executive what the extent was of any addition to the Scottish Assigned Budget for 2000-01 arising from negotiations with the Department of Work and Pensions and based on calculations of rent rebate payments and average rent levels in Scotland in that financial year.

Mr Andy Kerr: No adjustment was made to the Scottish Assigned Budget in 2000-01. We expect to receive shortly the agreement of Treasury and the Department of Work and Pensions to the adjustments in respect of 2000-01 and 2001-02, and I will announce the relevant sums when the figures have been finalised.

Fisheries

Richard Lochhead (North-East Scotland) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive what discussions it has held with the enterprise network and other appropriate agencies over assistance to crews whose berths will be disposed of under the fishing vessels decommissioning scheme.

Ross Finnie: The enterprise networks have been made aware, in discussions in the management groups overseeing the European structural funds programmes that partially fund the fishing vessel decommissioning scheme, of decommissioning plans. The actual impact of decommissioning on individual fishermen, and their ability to find alternative berths or employment if necessary, remains to be seen. The department and the enterprise networks will remain in contact over these issues.

Fisheries

Richard Lochhead (North-East Scotland) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive what assistance is being made available to the crews of fishing vessels who lose their livelihoods due to the fishing vessel decommissioning scheme and what preparations are being made to ensure that such assistance is in place when necessary.

Ross Finnie: It remains to be seen what the effects of decommissioning will be on individual fishermen and their employment status. If assistance is required, then the local enterprise companies and their employment partners have mechanisms in place to provide training and re-employment support.

Foot-and-Mouth Disease

David Mundell (South of Scotland) (Con): To ask the Scottish Executive how it is continuing to monitor the economic and social impact of the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak.

Ross Finnie: In recognition of the on-going nature of the impacts, the Economic Impact Assessment Group continue their work. They last met in November and have maintained a regular dialogue since. Their next meeting will coincide with the availability of the results of their case studies into the economic and social impacts on communities and key sectors.

  The next stage of their work will involve a full ex-post assessment of the outbreak. It will be taken forward in collaboration with the other Devolved Administrations and Whitehall Departments; the Impact Assessment Group will be represented on the steering group by SEERAD officials. The project is currently out to tender and will publish in the summer.

Health

Irene Oldfather (Cunninghame South) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S1W-14468 by Susan Deacon on 5 July 2001, what progress has been made in considering whether support tights should be made available on prescription through GPs.

Mrs Mary Mulligan: The Scottish Rehabilitation Technology Providers Forum (SCOTRET) Orthotic Sub-Group, the NHS providers forum for the clinicians, has been asked to consider and provide views by end of March on whether support tights should be available on prescription from GPs.

Higher Education

Brian Fitzpatrick (Strathkelvin & Bearsden) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive what assessment it has made, or is making, of the funding consequences for higher education institutions arising from the results of the Research Assessment Exercise.

Ms Wendy Alexander: The Scottish Higher Education Funding Council has submitted advice to the Scottish Executive in the light of the most recent Research Assessment Exercise, and we are considering this.

Justice

Linda Fabiani (Central Scotland) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S1W-20044 by Mr Jim Wallace on 30 November 2001, whether it has researched, or intends to research, the reasons behind the continued decline in the use of alternatives to court action in the case of custody/access disputes.

Mr Jim Wallace: The figures contained in the answer to question S1W-20044 were the official figures of Family Mediation Scotland (FMS). In the light of the information supplied in that answer, I caused further enquiries to be made. I understand a new monitoring system was introduced by FMS during 2000-01 in order to standardise the recording of referrals throughout their centres in Scotland. As a result, previous year’s figures cannot be considered comparable. In addition, due to organisational change the figures from Grampian have not been included in those for 2000-01.

  Allowing for this, it appears the number of referrals in recent years have remained broadly similar and have not declined.

Law

Fergus Ewing (Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S1W-15191 by Mr Jim Wallace on 23 April 2001, whether it has received a report from the Law Commission in respect of title to sue for non-patrimonial loss under the Damages (Scotland) Act 1976 and when it will bring forward proposals to the Parliament for reform of the Act.

Mr Jim Wallace: The Executive expects to receive the Scottish Law Commission’s report by the end of March. We will then consider whether any legislation is necessary in the light of the commission’s recommendations.

Law

Lord James Douglas-Hamilton (Lothians) (Con): To ask the Scottish Executive what plans it has to implement the report by the Scottish Law Commission, Report on Child Abduction , and what the timetable is for the report’s implementation.

Mr Jim Wallace: We have no plans to implement the 1987 Scottish Law Commission (SLC)  Report on Child Abduction . The law in this area has developed since 1987. The common law crime of abduction has been used more frequently to deal with the taking of children, and Section 2 of the Children (Scotland) Act 1995 makes it clear that a parent cannot remove from Scotland a child habitually resident in Scotland without the appropriate consent.

  Within the European Union, member states are currently discussing a proposed regulation on the mutual enforcement of judgements on rights of access to children, and a European Commission working document on mutual recognition of decisions on parental responsibility. The Scottish Executive is fully represented in these discussions and has consulted the Justice 2 and the European Committees about future developments in this area.

Legislation

Fiona Hyslop (Lothians) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive what agencies, organisations or persons it instructs to draft both primary and subordinate legislation.

Patricia Ferguson: Primary and subordinate legislation on devolved matters is drafted by the Office of the Scottish Parliamentary Counsel in the Scottish Executive and by the Office of the Solicitor to the Scottish Executive, respectively.

Maternity Services

Mr Brian Monteith (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Con): To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S1W-20852 by Malcolm Chisholm on 24 December 2001, who the members of the rural areas maternity service provision sub-group are, when the sub-group will be expected to report and whether any such report will be made public.

Malcolm Chisholm: The Remote and Rural Areas Initiative (RARARI) sub-group on maternity services is chaired by Mrs Brenda Thorpe, Head of Midwifery Services in Dumfries and Galloway. It draws its membership from professional groups, especially from remote and rural areas, including midwives, neonatal nurses, obstetricians, paediatricians, anaesthetists, and also has lay and user representation.

  The sub-group will consider remote and rural issues concerning maternity services, as identified in A Framework for Maternity Services in Scotland. The group will meet for the first time in February 2002. Detailed reporting arrangements are a matter for RARARI.

NHS Complaints

John Scott (Ayr) (Con): To ask the Scottish Executive what action it plans to take to address any concerns over existing complaints procedures in respect of the provision of dental services.

Malcolm Chisholm: The evaluation of the NHS complaints procedure which was carried out on a UK basis during 2001 considered the operation of the procedure in all parts of the NHS, including dental services. The report of the independent researchers can be found at: www.scotland.gov.uk/library3/health/nhscomplaints.pdf.

  A pre-consultation exercise was carried out in the autumn of 2001 to inform the development of proposals to meet the Health Plan commitment of establishing a new complaints process which is "credible, easy to use, demonstrably independent and effective". A working group, which includes patient representatives, is currently developing proposals for inclusion in a public consultation on the new procedure for issue in March 2002. The new procedure will continue to cover dental services.

NHS Staff

Dennis Canavan (Falkirk West) (): To ask the Scottish Executive what its policy is on the employment and remuneration of senior executives within the NHS in Scotland who have been given redundancy payments on termination of their employment as senior executives within the NHS in England.

Malcolm Chisholm: Senior executives made redundant or dismissed from NHS employment may apply for positions in NHSScotland. Employment of individual staff is a matter for each NHSScotland employer who should seek and take due account of appropriate references from previous employers, including former NHS employers. Applicants from former NHS staff who have a criminal record should be dealt with under the arrangements set out in the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act.

Private Finance Initiative

Mr Murray Tosh (South of Scotland) (Con): To ask the Scottish Executive whether it is monitoring Her Majesty's Government's pilot schemes for the use of the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) to increase investment in local authority housing; whether it intends to commission any research on the use of the PFI, and whether it plans to identify any pilot schemes for the use of the PFI to increase investment in local authority housing.

Ms Margaret Curran: A small number of HRA PFI Pathfinder schemes have been set up in England, however, there are no plans to set up similar schemes in Scotland. One of the key elements of the Executive's housing policy is the promotion of community ownership. With PFI models it is not clear that tenants would be fully involved in investment decisions and they would not have the opportunity to ultimately take on the ownership of their housing.

Road Accidents

Mr Brian Monteith (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Con): To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S1W-20574 by Lewis Macdonald on 3 January 2002, how many road accidents resulting in deaths have occurred on trunk roads in the Central Scotland police area in each of the last four years.

Lewis Macdonald: The number of road accidents resulting in deaths that have occurred on trunk roads in the Central Scotland police area in each of the last four years is as follows:

  


Year 


No. of Fatal Accidents 




1998 
  

9 
  



1999 
  

2 
  



2000 
  

4 
  



2001 
  

6 
  



Total 
  

21

Roads

Andrew Wilson (Central Scotland) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answers to questions S1W-20257, S1W-20258 and S1W-20816 by Lewis Macdonald on 7 January 2002, what the legal barriers were, broken down by particular Act and section, that prevented it, as the author of the trunk roads maintenance contracts, from (a) requiring that the Statement of Practice guidelines associated with TUPE transfers be an obligation during the transfer of staff and (b) improving the contractual protection of the pension rights of local authority staff in its tender process in each case.

Lewis Macdonald: TUPE is the UK Regulation which transposes the EC Acquired Rights Directive. The application of TUPE is a matter of law. The Scottish Executive were unable to state that a Transfer of Undertaking would occur on the award of the new contracts. Regulation 3 of TUPE requires the occurrence of a relevant transfer as a precondition of the application of the regulations.

  Further to the answer given to question S1W-20816, the contracts are silent on the pensions position. There are no powers within the contract which would have allowed ministers to require the new operating companies to improve the levels of pension.

Roads

John Farquhar Munro (Ross, Skye and Inverness West) (LD): To ask the Scottish Executive what representations it has received on the performance of BEAR Scotland Ltd in respect of the trunk roads maintenance contract in the Highland Council area and what action it has taken in response to each such representation in each of the last six months.

Lewis Macdonald: The Scottish Executive has received a number of representations regarding the performance of BEAR Scotland Ltd in respect of the trunk road maintenance contract in the North west Unit, which includes the Highland Council area.

  In the majority of cases the matter has been referred to BEAR to investigate and address where necessary. The Performance Audit Group regularly audits BEAR’s performance and in a few instances this had led to the issue of default notices.

  It would not be appropriate to give details of each representation received due to disproportionate cost.

Roads

John Farquhar Munro (Ross, Skye and Inverness West) (LD): To ask the Scottish Executive what recent discussions it has had with the Highland Council in respect of the trunk roads maintenance contract in the Highland Council area.

Lewis Macdonald: Scottish Executive Officials have held meetings with Highland Council on 5 and 14 November 2001 and 12 December 2001 to discuss trunk road winter maintenance.

Schools

Brian Fitzpatrick (Strathkelvin & Bearsden) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive what information it has on the contribution made by denominational schools to academic achievement.

Nicol Stephen: We do not specifically analyse information on academic achievement in terms of the contribution of denominational schools.

Schools

Brian Fitzpatrick (Strathkelvin & Bearsden) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive what information it has on the contribution made by denominational schools to academic achievement in areas of social deprivation.

Nicol Stephen: As I indicated in my answer to question S1W-21629 we do not specifically analyse information on academic achievement in terms of the contribution of denominational schools. This includes academic achievement in areas of social deprivation.

Schools

Brian Fitzpatrick (Strathkelvin & Bearsden) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive what consideration it is giving, or planning to give, to increasing denominational schools’ provision for minority faiths.

Nicol Stephen: Under statute, provision of schools – including denominational schools - is a matter for each education authority.

Schools

Brian Fitzpatrick (Strathkelvin & Bearsden) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive what consideration it is giving, or planning to give, to improving the organisation of the school year.

Nicol Stephen: We are currently considering whether there is merit in promoting greater harmonisation of the school year. I hope that parents, pupils, teachers and everyone with an interest will discuss this and other issues related to the organisation of the school year during the National Debate on Education later this year.

Scottish Executive Departments

Fiona Hyslop (Lothians) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive what the remit is of its Constitutional Policy Unit.

Ms Patricia Ferguson: The Executive's Constitutional Policy Unit works on a range of issues relating to the operation of the Scotland Act and the devolution settlement, including advice, guidance and training; relations with the UK Government and the other devolved administrations; the Joint Ministerial Committees and the British Irish Council, and the preparation of subordinate legislation under the Scotland Act. The unit is also responsible for the preparation and implementation of the Public Sector Ombudsman Bill.

Scottish Transport Group Pension Schemes

Fiona Hyslop (Lothians) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive whether it has revised its systems for keeping Scottish Transport Group pensioners informed of the progress of their applications with regard to the wind-up of the Scottish Transport Group pension schemes and, if so, what its current arrangements are.

Lewis Macdonald: I refer the member to the answer given to question S1W-17011. In addition, the Executive has taken the decision to issue a copy of the Scottish Transport Group Pension Funds Information Bulletin - December 2001 to each potential beneficiary who has registered an interest with or who requests a relevant form from the Executive. This distribution is under way.

Waste Management

John Scott (Ayr) (Con): To ask the Scottish Executive how it will establish baseline figures in respect of controlled waste collected by or for local authorities for the purposes of meeting its obligations under the EU Landfill Directive (1999/31/EC), given that the Scottish Environment Protection Agency states in its report Waste Data Digest 2001 that such figures are not known, and when it will do so.

Ross Finnie: The obligation in the Landfill Directive to reduce the proportion of biodegradable municipal waste sent to landfill applies to member states, based on 1995 levels. Scotland will be expected to meet a proportion of this. There are a number of potential methods for dividing the overall figures between local authorities, which do not depend on knowing the actual amounts of waste for each authority for that year. We plan to publish a consultation paper later in 2002 setting out proposals on how we shall establish the baseline and target figures for each authority.

Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body

Parliament Shop

Helen Eadie (Dunfermline East) (Lab): To ask the Presiding Officer whether the Parliament’s restaurant and shop currently accept payment in euros and, if not, whether there are any plans to allow them to do so.

Sir David Steel: Neither the restaurant nor the shop currently accepts payment in currencies other than sterling, and there are no plans at present to change these arrangements. The SPCB will review this in planning for the Holyrood building.